Good morning. So this morning I'd like to talk about vow. We've been talking a lot about vows. And because I've been thinking about vows so much, the spring blossoms have been reminding me of the strength of our practice. That even from these apparently dead branches, you know, every year... The buds just spring forth, you know, out of nothingness there's something and you watch them grow day by day in their brilliant colors and their vibrant green. The maple blossoms are just out now. Inconceivable. So a bodhisattva is a person who lifts by vows not by karma.

[01:03]

So a bodhisattva is a person who lives by vow, not by karma. And we're all bodhisattvas in training. So still completely mired in karma, we vow again and again, over and over again. Sometimes completely free of our karma, sometimes it feels like we're drowning in it. But we come back to vow again and again. And that becomes a reliable foundation of our practice, our individual practice, and our practice together. So today I want to talk about the third pure precept. And we often chant it as, I vow to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings. And this resonates very closely with the first bodhisattva vow. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Or sometimes we say, I vow to awaken with them.

[02:06]

No separation. And vowing to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings is indeed no separation to be lived for the benefit of all beings. Not I am living for the benefit of all beings. Even though we have to make that vow. We make the vow from the sense... of a separate self vowing to do something for others who are not in fact separate, but we nonetheless experience it that way. But through our practice, we are lived for the benefit of all beings. And actually, we are always living for the benefit of all beings. It's so easy to see in others, sometimes hard to see in ourselves, but we see the way others show up on their cushion day after day, the way they meet their suffering, the way they bow to us, the way they serve us in Oriyoki, Often it's easier to see others practice. We know where we stumble. But we keep going, we keep getting up.

[03:12]

So in the full moon ceremony, Dogen's verse after this precept, after this vow is, it is transcending profane and holy and taking self and others across. So this is expressing the non-duality, the complete non-separation of self and others. Completely interpenetrated. How could we be apart from one another? When we're in practice period, we become so open, we actually have no idea how open we are. But we may be aware that we're far more sensitive to little things. This person didn't bow very deeply to me or maybe didn't bow to me at all. What does that mean? We can take things very personally because we're so open. We're resonating so deeply.

[04:12]

We feel each other's joys. We feel each other's suffering. And we feel our own. So taking self and others across. No separation. Yun Yun asked Dao Wu, how does the bodhisattva Guan Yin use those many hands and eyes? You know, in many depictions of Avalokiteshvara or Guan Yin or Kanon, she's depicted with a thousand arms, a thousand hands, and in the center of each hand is an eye. So reaching out and helping and also seeing, hearing the suffering of the world. So Yunnan is asking Dao Wu, how does the Bodhisattva Guan Yin use those many hands and eyes? And Dao Wu answered, it is like someone in the middle of the night reaching behind her head for the pillow.

[05:16]

Yunnan said, I understand. Dao Wu said, how do you understand? Yunnan said, All over the body are hands and eyes. Yunnan said, That is very well expressed. Pretty good. But it is only eight-tenths. Yunnan said, How would you say of elder brother? Dao Wu said, Throughout the body are hands and eyes. So, In one sense, all over the body, throughout the body, this is like the skin, flesh, bones and marrow. Could there be any difference in depth? And yet, when our experience is deepest, how we express it is deepest. Throughout the body, our hands and eyes, just reaching behind for a pillow.

[06:23]

just reaching out a hand. Someone trips, our arm goes out, we steady them. There's no thought there. Someone calls our name, we turn our head. Immediate response, appropriate response. How do we use all those hands and eyes every day? So throughout the body is not this body, this physical body. It's the body of the entire world of the ten directions is the true human body. This body that we're born with is not yet the true human body. It is and it isn't. It hasn't been fully realized yet. Just as we are completely of the nature of Buddha and we still have to realize.

[07:28]

We still have to realize Buddha nature. We have to realize our true human body. This true human body that is this body and that is the universe's body, that is the body of the universe. So in order to live by vow and to transcend our karma, our conditioned experience, how we came into the world and grew up in the world, the limited views, we have to first be where we are. We can't jump over. And because of this, at the beginning of the full moon ceremony, we chant the repentances, confession and repentance, all my ancient twisted karma, from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, born through body, speech and mind, I now fully avow. To avow is just to be completely present with, to open to, to acknowledge, yes, that's how it is.

[08:38]

And that can be a very difficult thing to do. So I want to talk a little bit about ignorance. because we can't fully avow or freely confess what we can't or won't allow into our awareness, what we can't be present with. And I think this is one of the reasons why ignorance is considered the first link of the 12-fold chain of dependent origination. It's hard to start when we can't even know that we're suffering or how we're suffering, when we can't see clearly. So the Sanskrit term for ignorance is avidya. Vidya means seeing or knowing and A is not, like an.

[09:46]

So A, avidya, not seeing or not knowing. The image of ignorance is typically on the 12-fold chain that we have in the dining room. I forget, it must be there too, but I mean, I don't know what the image is there, but it's traditionally a blind person or a blindfolded person. And I like that it could be either. Sometimes it's blind, like we can't see it, we're just unaware. And sometimes it's blindfolded, like we're covering our own eyes. We're not looking. So on the most fundamental level, ignorance is a misunderstanding of the nature of reality, is seeing a separate self, seeing the duality of self and others, the whole construction of the world. This is the most fundamental meaning.

[10:47]

More specifically, well, more fundamentally, it's the... nature of reality. More specifically, it's the nature of self and phenomena, that separation. But generally, and the way we often talk about it in the teachings, is not understanding the full meaning or the full implication of the Four Noble Truths. Shakyamuni, after his awakening, said, That enlightenment which I have attained through many hardships, should I now teach to others? Those who hold fast to greed and hatred cannot easily understand this truth. Against the common stream, subtle, profound, fine, and difficult to perceive, it cannot be seen by those who are lost in desire, cloaked in darkness. So, Shakyamuni, after his awakening, having some thought to share this truth with others, sees that

[11:53]

people are in ignorance and it would be very hard to see, hard to perceive. And that so many are lost in greed, desire, cloaked in the darkness of delusion and ignorance. And that seeing this truth goes against the stream, wanting what is pleasant, wanting to avoid what is not pleasant. That is going with the stream. So this goes against the stream. And yet he chose to teach. That was maybe the first vow. Or you could say even before the words of a vow had arisen he decided that he would try. He would go out. So ignorance can be failing to see the connection between cause and effect wondering again why won't it turn out differently when we've done the same things which is very it's much more difficult to perceive when cause and effect are separated in time when we touch the fire and it burns immediately it's easy to get the message but many things are longer they

[13:20]

over long periods of time and it's hard to make the connection. So one way of looking at the Four Noble Truths are as a statement about causality or as four statements about causality. If this, then that. If there is suffering or if there is clinging, there is suffering. Following the path, There is freedom from suffering. So there are conditional statements. There is suffering. There is a cause of suffering. There is freedom and there is a cause or a path to that freedom. But ignorance is also, as with the blindfolded person, a deliberate or perhaps unconscious avoidance of seeing or knowing. And this can be much more difficult to work with than just a not seeing.

[14:23]

Because if it's not seeing, then when our attention is brought to it, we can see it more easily. But when we're avoiding seeing it, it becomes very confused. And it can also be much more difficult to practice with than strong experiences of physical or emotional pain. That at least, you know, many people have said, if there's a sharp pain in zazen, it focuses the mind wonderfully. You know, it's like, I'm right there with that pain in my knee. It's hard to get away from it. My mind can stay right there. But this kind of overall fog or haze, or maybe it's not overall, maybe it's just certain areas in the body, certain areas in the mind, certain things that are very hard to turn toward or think about, our awareness just sort of skitters away from them, can show up as denial, defensiveness, projection.

[15:28]

Maybe other people can see it, but you have a hard time because our minds point outward. Sometimes it's distraction, sometimes it's blame, sometimes it's greed. There's so many manifestations of how the hurting self that doesn't know how to deal with what's arising has to try to make itself feel safe. So this blindfold of ignorance, even though it may feel very troublesome to ourselves or others, usually starts as an effort to save ourselves, to be safe. If we could have dealt with it, originally we surely would have. We deal with the scraped knees and the hurt feelings that sometimes when it's really big we find a way to block it out so that we can just keep on going.

[16:31]

So when we start practice Often we really don't know quite what we're looking for. In our way-seeking mind talks I think we hear that again and again, that there's some feeling, there's some pull, but we don't really know what we're looking for. Or maybe we've looked in a lot of different places and haven't quite found it. It's kind of like being lost in the wilderness, searching, going from one thing to another. But there's something that touches us and leads us on even if we can't say what it is. In the ten ox-herding pictures the first image is of searching for the ox. And the verse, it's called In Search of the Bull or In Search of the Ox. In the pasture of the world

[17:48]

I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the ox. Following unnamed rivers lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains, my strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the ox. We keep looking, we keep searching, and something keeps us going, even though we're exhausted with the effort. And often when we come to practice, it's because our old way of being is really no longer workable. And we've somehow touched our own suffering or the suffering of others in a different way, in a way that asks for something deeper, a deeper response from us. So to touch our own suffering, to be present with it, the first noble truth, the truth of suffering, to be present with it, to meet it, to not turn away from the whole range of our experience that is unsatisfactory or difficult.

[19:16]

The request of practice for the first noble truth is not to understand it as an idea there is suffering or the first noble truth is suffering or life is suffering as an idea but to actually be present and touch our suffering touch that unsatisfactoriness and this points us back again and again to our own experience. It's not looking for something outside of ourselves. The more we look outside of ourselves, the less we can find it. So this is truly going against the stream because who would think that what is painful is exactly the place where we should go? This is why the teachings are so precious and rare.

[20:21]

Who would think to look in the midst of all this muck? So the way to overcome ignorance and intervene in the cycle of suffering, how do we do that? How do we practice? So the second noble truth is the cause of suffering, that there's clinging or ignorance. And the request is that we let go, is that seeing it, seeing it deeply, we're already letting go. To be present with suffering is already to let it go. We're not holding on, we're being with it as it is. And then we're open. So this is the meaning or the reason for the practice of renunciation, the practice of letting go again and again. why we have the schedule and the shingi all the guidelines we have for our practice together is to practice in large ways and mostly very small ways to get in the habit of letting go the bell rings we get up the bell rings we come back to the zenda do we like it?

[21:41]

maybe, maybe not doesn't matter, we just go and we find out that we can stay present with it What a surprise. That's what builds our confidence and builds our faith. That we can just keep going. That we can do it. So this is why we have all these practices. So that when someone trips we reach out a hand. When the bell rings we go to the zendo. This becomes our ground. Responsiveness. Not reactivity. shutting out, pushing away. And in terms of the Eightfold Path, the path of practices, which lead to freedom, the first is right view. Right view is, again, not an idea.

[22:47]

So, So thinking about right view, that's the foundation of right view, is thinking about this, hearing it, taking in the teaching of complete non-separation of self and other. Complete interdependence of all being, non-self, impermanence. But right view is to see that way, is to literally see as a Buddha sees. and that seeing is an experiential seeing, it's not a cognitive seeing. My teacher, Sojin Mel Weitzman says, I study to verify my practice. And I like that very much. In the beginning we study to get some idea about practice, but the idea about practice is not practice. Nonetheless, that's the first step, is we hear the teachings,

[23:50]

And we take them in and we work with them and we question them, turn them around. And over time we begin to realize the teachings. And then when we study, we're verifying our practice. Is this how it is for me? How is it for you? And we continually go back and forth. And the teachings and our experience and our practice are no longer separate. And this is why we can all have different expressions of the teachings, expressions of the Dharma. Because they're unique to each one of us even though we also share them. In our experience we share them. In our realization we share them. So the kind of ignorance that is a blindfold that we put over our own eyes can be a web that extends through our whole being and it has to in order to maintain itself because this kind of ignorance is not just a simple not knowing it's a turning away it's an avoidance so it takes quite a bit of effort actually which we may be completely unaware of but it may manifest in our bodies in tension or agitation

[25:19]

in heightened awareness or flattened awareness. So one of our absolutely core practices and part of the Eightfold Path is zazen, dhyana, chan, zen, all the same word. Zazen, sitting zen, sitting meditation. So we sit, we stay, we attend. Not stories, not thoughts. Being. Body, body, body. Experience. Coming back, coming back, coming back. Getting lost, getting lost, getting lost. Coming back, coming back, coming back. So this interplay between mind and vow and right view and experience and body and practice is so important.

[26:37]

Because when we're just trying to attend, our karmic conditioning may be such that we continue getting lost in dead ends. We may be out wandering in very dark corridors. So the teachings can help point us very strongly. And this teaching about the non-separation of self and others, one of the things that really helps with is with compassion and kindness and a fundamental shift in how we relate with ourself and with others. When we're kind with others, we can be more kind with ourself. Maybe not immediately, but it grows. When we're kind with ourselves, we can definitely be kind with others. No trouble. And sometimes there are old vows, vows made in childhood, vows made from the depths of our karma,

[27:55]

that need to be transformed, that need to be perhaps released, but definitely transformed. Some of them are completely wholesome, and sometimes we have ones that are not so wholesome. The first vow I remember making, I was about four or five years old, and I vowed not to hurt anyone the way that my family had hurt me. I really remember that. I was very determined, and that really shaped my life. I made a lot of effort to be good and to be nice, and maybe more importantly, to not feel. That worked well in my family, to be cheerful. And whatever I had of fear and anger, the only safe place for it to go was inward. So unsurprisingly, maybe about five years later, when I'd gotten quite good at this, my second vow was to get out of the boxes.

[29:11]

And I didn't see really any connection with these, but I felt like every person, including myself, existed in a little box. You know, now I would say the box of our karmic conditioning, but as a child I just said, all living in boxes. You know, we can't see out, we can't get out, we can't connect with each other. And I really wanted to get out of the boxes. I couldn't see how I was trapped. I could see how other people were trapped. But I knew I was also trapped. And these two could exist, these two vows could exist side by side for a long time. I think partly because the first one was about body and emotions, and the second one was about mind. Getting out of the mind was a very mental or cognitive kind of thing. But over time, these two became in real direct conflict with each other. There was a lot of tension there.

[30:12]

So by the time I was in my... I was about 16, and I fell in love, and everything opened up, and the light shone in, And then about three months later it ended quite badly. And very suddenly. And the light went out. And out of that depression came the vow that I wanted to be happy. I had no other word for it, but it was happy in the sense the Buddha uses happiness. Which is not a superficial happiness, but meant something more like whole being, true being, completeness. wholeness and nothing else really mattered I could see that the other things in life were were not going to be satisfactory they were going to be pasting over that unfortunately I kind of rejected a lot of the other things in life because I had no practice I had no path I had no way to manifest that I just had this wish and I didn't have any place to put it

[31:22]

So I think these vows, each one was so incomplete, so bound up in my karma, that they have been the ground of my practice. They're the ground that I push up off of. They're what has powered my practice. And I think for each one of us, whether or not we've made... some kind of a childhood vow, whether it was, I'll never be hurt again, or I'll always be kind, or whatever it is, to try to meet the suffering that we encountered internally, in our families, and in the world. Those vows start us off on the path They're our very first bodhisattva and training vows.

[32:31]

They're what gets us in the path. And then they keep needing to be transformed. Because our karma keeps kind of splattering them, you know. You need to keep washing them off a little bit. Oh, that's a little extra. Oh, I see that there's a little clinging there. There's a little hurt there. It's a little avoidance. Okay. Okay. And then the fundamental vows keep shining forth. So there are so many teachings about this. So many phrases. The ground you fall down on is the ground you get up by. Here is the place, here the way unfolds. If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him. This mind, this body, nothing else is the true human body. So this is really difficult.

[33:35]

How do we keep going? I think one aspect is the vows that we've taken together, that we share, that we renew again and again and again. We become one body of practice, one vow body. And in doing this together, we encourage each other. Of course, we have to allow that encouragement to reach us. Blanche Hartman tells a lovely story of when she was, I think, a Tongario student here. And she hadn't come to the Zendo for no particularly good reason. And that is, she wasn't sick. She was probably quite tired, though. And the Tenkin came to her door. and was talking to her and really to no avail. And eventually the Tenkin said, well, don't you want any encouragement?

[34:38]

And Blanche said, oh, kind of like, is that what that is? She said, okay, okay, I can be encouraged. She got up and went to the Zendo. We have to choose to open ourselves to that. And to go forward in our practice, we have to choose over and over and over again. When it's just immediate response, appropriate response, that's wonderful, and so often it's not. It's like, um, can I think about that? I'll get back to you on that. Maybe you'll forget about it. And we say that to ourselves a lot too. I'll just do this little thing over here and maybe I'll feel more like doing that.

[35:47]

So choosing again and again and again. Vowing again and again and again. Coming back again and again and again. And it gets easier. This commitment becomes more solid. because it becomes what the body is doing, what the mind is doing, what the mouth is saying. It becomes the go-to response. It becomes easier than not. And to be upright, completely upright with all of our failings. We're usually kind of okay with most people's failings. I mean, except of course the ones that directly impact us, but the rest of them, failing in general, we're pretty compassionate with other people. But we're often very hard on ourselves. Dogen talked about his practice being one continuous mistake.

[36:52]

We have these impossible vows, so we need a tremendous amount of persistence, patience and perseverance and kindness and humility just the lower we stay the farther we the less far we have to fall it's like okay here I am right here and being gentle with ourselves over and over again so that even Even when old patterns recur, we're less buried by them. And it's workable. The pain is workable. The feelings are workable. All of it is workable. Oh, that's a really unpleasant sensation I'm having right now. That's a painful thought. And I can feel how that thought reverberates throughout my body. And those are painful images too. Okay.

[37:55]

And we can bear them. don't have to like him. So those are some things that have supported me in my practice to keep on going. But I want to ask the Great Assembly, what supports you in your practice? How do you keep going? How do you come back? What nourishes you? The color in the world. Thank you. Kind words. Saying thank you. Saying thank you. stubbornness what love I like to go in the creek after I'm in the plunge and the part of me that goes in anyway even though I'm frightened of the cold I'm going down the steps jump yeah

[39:32]

Stars, stars. Resetivity. Adventure. Adventure. A place in my heart that's touched by everybody's efforts, feeling everybody's efforts. You have to get it away in order to keep it. That canyon run. do familiar things, like dishes, or coming back to Tassajar's schedule.

[40:51]

And then, again, serving as a backdrop, then surprising, inspirational, mostly from, like, the canyon ran or other people. Lack of choice. That is so helpful. Thank you, kitchen. Cooking lunch. Doing the next thing. Maybe this is the next thing.

[42:06]

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